Historian Ramachandra Guha found himself in the middle of a heated debate on social media following his adverse reaction to Madan Mohan Malaviya being bestowed with Bharat Ratna.

Guha issued a series of tweets on the subject starting with, "Giving Vajpayee a Bharat Ratna is fine, but one should not award it to people dead or long dead. Awarding Malaviya is a mistake."

He further tweeted, "The more I think of it, the more the award of the Bharat Ratna to MM Malaviya strikes me as parochial and indefensible. If Malaviya, why not give Tagore, Phule, Tilak, Gokhale, Vivekananda, Akbar, Shivaji, Guru Nanak, Kabir, Ashoka, Bharat Ratnas too?"

He also took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting in one of his tweets that the award was given because the Benaras Hindu University, which Malaviya had founded, was located in Modi's parliamentary constituency.

"The Prime Minister tweets that Malaviya got the award for his scholarship and patriotism. In both spheres, there were far greater Indians ... Gokhale, Tilak, Kamaladevi, Bhagat Singh, contributed far more than Malaviya to the freedom struggle, Tagore far more to education/literature. But Gokhale/Tilak/Bhagat Singh/Kamaladevi/Tagore and other such stalwarts did not work or live in the Prime Minister's constituency," he posted.

"That said, I hope from now on there (is) no more posthumous Bharat Ratna, so that such rampant politicization is at least minimized," he wrote on his official twitter handle @Ram_Guha.

The tweets brought forth far more protests than support. Popular fiction writer Amish Tripathi posted that he "strongly disagrees" with Guha. "Malaviyaji was indeed one of the greatest Indians ever. BHU is a fine institution & an asset to India. Many underpriviledged (sic) families benefited from Malaviyaji's support and built a new life. My family was one of them."

Malaviya was one of the stalwarts of India's long freedom struggle. "He was a committed anti-imperialist but he also believed in the Hindu cause, especially cow protection. He also worked tirelessly to promote Hindi," said Salil Misra, who teaches history at Ambedkar University Delhi.

There is merit in the contention that one should not award the Bharat Ratna to people who have expired.

However, he gives away his political agenda with the words - but one should not award it to people dead or long dead.

One wonders why good old Ramu did not raise this issue when it was given to dead and long dead who had Congress leanings?

His comment that '"The more I think of it, the more the award of the Bharat Ratna to MM Malaviya strikes me as parochial and indefensible" is in itself parochial and indefensible for the same reason mentioned above.

If the Bharat Ratna is awarded for "in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order", then what did Rajiv Gandhi get it for posthumously? His Prime Ministership? Before that he was only a commercial pilot and his contribution is the disastrous adventure in Sri Lanka and that is hardly "exceptional service/performance of the highest order", or is, eh, Ramu?

All awards of the Govt has been on political considerations and this is a fact that is conveniently forgotten by those who cry foul now. In fact, they have reduced the grandeur and majesty of the awards to the level of a Joke.

Lollipops for political considerations, started by the Congress and so, now crying over spilt milk by teh Congressmen and their camp followers like Ramu Guha, is like an act of a dog in the manger.

In which world is 44 not long dead but 68 years is? Well, the world's in the warped mind of RC Guha and his ilk obviously.

Actually, what he should be arguing is that sitting PM granting themselves the Bharat Ratna is indefensible but that would mean criticizing his idol Nehru or IndiraG. So a low level propagandist such as Guha is never going to do that.